The members of the financial community such as equity research analysts and investors who invest in individual retail companies and other types of merchants are often in search of historical sales growth rate estimates of the retail industry that are accurate and also readily available without much delay. Such historical sales growth rate estimates would be beneficial to the various members of the retail industry and other industries, such as the banking industry, that service the retail industry by providing insight into the health of the retail industry, as well as overall consumer behavior.
One way of generating such historical growth rate estimates would be to look at the raw sales transaction data of a credit card provider. However, such approach has certain limitations. For example, the raw credit card sales transaction growth will overstate the underlying economic performance of the retail industry because a part of that growth is attributable to the general increase in the consumer acceptance of use of credit cards in retail purchases. Additionally, any portfolio shifts of major financial institutions from one credit card provider to another credit card provider can overstate or understate growth, depending on which credit card provider's sales transaction data is monitored.